


A new zone

by astralprojects



Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: (Himari and Rinko are confirmed arospec in this), Aggressively aromantic, Aromantic, Aromantic Character, Contemplations about romance, F/F, Fluff, Happy Birthday mwah, I criticise amatonormativity in 2000 words, I!! Love xem!!, Multi, Polyamory, Queer awakening, Queerplatonic Relationships, This is for my boyfriend he's gay, This is so self-indulgent it feels wrong to gift it, This was supposed to be only Himarinko but it ended up having a Tsuguhima focus I am so sorry, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Yuri, arophobes do not even fucking breathe on this I'll end you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:15:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29043717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralprojects/pseuds/astralprojects
Summary: 00:04 googlw how to tell if you have a crush00:07 google symptoms of a crush00:10 gopgle how to tell if i like her00:15 googlr not friends not lovers00:17 whats a qpr00:23 google qpr request form00:24 how to make google your default browser
Relationships: Aoba Moca/Hazawa Tsugumi/Mitake Ran/Udagawa Tomoe/Uehara Himari, Hazawa Tsugumi/Uehara Himari, Shirokane Rinko/Uehara Himari
Comments: 9
Kudos: 21





	A new zone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MocaAobaLovemail](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MocaAobaLovemail/gifts).



> This is so obnoxiously aromantic you are going to cry your eyes out
> 
> Bbbbbb a lot of this isn't taken from my own experience + I exaggerated some of what was taken, but my own experiences did play a part in writing this! This was so fun to write...
> 
> I absolutely have to write more aspec + queerplatonic Bandori in future.

_"If you would picture romance with taper candles over dinner, and a sexual relationship as a queen bed, I would try picturing a queerplatonic relationship as string lights over tea and a bunk bed with tin can-and-wire phones between them. The same, but not."_

It made no damn sense.

To Himari, everything was grey. The clouds were grey, the pavement was grey, and this messy area that her feelings were in was definitely grey.

She clasped her hands over her eyes, experimenting.

Black.

A small gap was made between her entwined fingers.

In that space alone, white.

Everything was, quite literally, black and white. Lovers and friends. Romantic and platonic. So where was this grey coming from? And what did it mean?

She had no clue, but she recognised the bare minimum, utilising it as grounds for investigation: grey was something in between black and white. But she didn’t want some middle ground. She wanted something new entirely. So who was in the wrong here?

Surely it was her.

Himari propelled herself into sitting upwards, feeling the mattress shifting and changing under her palms.

Afterglow was grey, she thought. They made jokes that were far too intimate for any outsider’s comfort - Moca was always trying to steal kisses from them all and Ran blushed more than she did with anyone else and Tomoe would tease the idea of them being a polycule and then they would all drown Tsugu in a dramatic display of affection every other week.

She searched a little harder.

The world-renowned Afterglow cuddle pile was eccentric. It wasn’t strange for friends to hug, but their five could quite literally stack themselves like Jenga without warning. Everyone had their own fixed position, of which they could slot themselves comfortably into with ease. It was just in their nature. 

None of them realised that this wasn’t a normal friendship thing, of course, until Sayo gawped at them with potential horror on one of their movie nights. She later explained that it wasn’t the cuddling itself that was shocking (although it was somewhat uncommon). It was the petting, the forehead-kissing, and the fact that she couldn’t find either of Tomoe’s legs.

Himari rubbed her eyes, sparking another memory.

She remembered when Tsugumi first dated Sayo. It was her who encouraged them and went ecstatic over it, but… there was something wrong.

Himari just couldn’t put her finger on it at the time. Sayo made Tsugumi happy, and she wanted that for her more than anything. She liked seeing them together. Watching Tsugumi tease Sayo (Himari teased Tsugumi all the time), noticing the discreet glances and joint hands (Tsugumi and Himari were the only ones in Afterglow who continued to hold hands past primary school), and every other little pleasure they took part in.

But Himari knew this dance.

If they were to be more than just high-school sweethearts, Sayo would become Tsugumi’s everything. They would move in together - maybe move away together too, if need be. They would coordinate their lives in order to fuse them and spend them together. They would prioritise each other always, and no matter what she did, Himari would always only be the second thought. “Girlfriend” had more letters than “friend” - the prefix added something in more ways than one - and it had more importance as well.

That was just the order of things.

Once she realised her jealousy, Himari spent a lot of time analysing it, trying to dig up the root cause.

The conclusion she came to was split into two: she either wanted to date Tsugumi herself, or she was afraid of losing her.

Both seemed sensible, and while Himari wanted to do all manner of “romantic” things with Tsugumi, the latter proved to hold more truth.

Luckily for her, the two shared a relationship where they could be open about anything. No limits, no shame, no judgement. That was why Himari was seated at a table for two in Hazawa Coffee with a lemon drizzle cake and a mug filled with caffeinated guilt.

It took awhile for her nerves to settle down enough for her to speak. As soon as they did, she spilled the contents of her mug all over the table and struggled not to run out of the café right there and then.

Tsugumi countered her excessive guilt with understanding eyes and honest assurance that nothing would change between them. In fact, she confessed that she herself had been worrying as well: worrying whether she could balance her time evenly between Afterglow and Sayo, whether they would drift apart now that she was in a relationship, whether they would all inevitably partner off and be unable to remain as they are, as close as they are.

But Tsugumi didn’t want to get married off to someone and be whisked away to the demon realm of amatonormativity (as Ako described it). Instead, she preached of a fantastical future where they could have their cake and eat it, too. Afterglow could still be as close as close could be, yet she could have the same with Sayo, albeit with a different feel to it.

Their evening ended with a shared promise that they wouldn’t let themselves drift apart from each other; Himari finally somewhat had peace of mind.

She embraced Tsugumi, and when she dreamed that night, she didn’t have to let go.

If only she knew what that all meant.

Himari had always thought she might have had a crush on Tsugumi, as much as she tried to deny it, but upon further inspection, that wasn’t true.

Sure, there were the fluffy feelings, and she wanted to be by her side no matter what, but it was just… different somehow. Originally, the romance she saw constantly in movies and advertisements and even on random billboards had its appeal and seemed desirable, but it needed tweaking. Maybe she would like it more in practice rather than only in theory if it was just less… romance-y.

Yeah, that wasn’t a normal thought to have.

Whenever she crafted the type of relationship she longed for in her mind, Himari would realise that she already had such a thing - with Ran, and Moca, and Tsugumi and Tomoe. She just needed to clarify that they were all on the same page about this (aside from Tsugumi), which she would! Later.

And then she would realise who else she wanted that type of relationship with.

And that explained why she had ten tabs open, one of which was Rinko Shirokane’s Tumblr blog.

Himari crashed her head into her hands and questioned when everything had gone so wrong.

Surely she could just ask? It was an easy enough task - click that little smiling speech bubble and condense all the sapphic confusion in her heart into 500 characters tops. After that, all she needed to do was press “Ask”.

But then again, what could she say? If it didn’t make sense to her, how was she supposed to convey everything to Rinko?

Himari heaved out a tragic-sounding sigh and opened yet another tab. Maybe she could search her sorrows away.

_googlw how to tell if you have a crush_

Oh, good! 370,000,000 pages of repetitive denial.

Nevertheless, Himari squinted and read the first piece of information immediately available to her.

_The most common sign of having a crush is the feeling that you have **a million butterflies flying around inside you** when that special someone is around. It can also feel like **your heart does a leap** when you see your crush and **you feel warm and giddy**. Do you suddenly **feel nervous but excited** at the same time? ___

Himari blinked plainly. She related to 0 words of that. Next page it was, then. 

_How do I know I have a crush?_  
_\- You start doing weird things with your hair._  
_\- Your life revolves around them._  
_\- You’ve started stalking them online._  
_\- You’ll try to spot them in every waking moment._  
_\- You’ll start hallucinating about them._

… What the fuck? 

These symptoms were all things she could easily connect to Kaoru - not so much anyone she actually had a chance with. In context, though, they all seemed… well, there was no eloquent way to word this, so she simply wouldn’t. 

_google symptoms of a crush_

Maybe this would be more easy on the eyes. 

… Damn, these were just the same results as last time. Although, come to think of it, Himari didn’t know what else she was expecting. 

Whatever— whatever! She didn’t care anyway. 

No matter how many queries she searched (and misspelled), no matter how many times she got annoyed at Yahoo’s incompetence, and no matter how many minutes she had wasted, Himari related to barely any of this. It just didn’t apply to her. 

Even so, there was one thing she found that wasn’t just regurgitated information from any of the other sites. 

_whats a qpr_

… Huh.

Out of curiosity rather than a heavy sense of obligation this time, Himari moved her hands to type again. 

* * *

“Rinko.” 

Having been interrupted from her work, Rinko swivelled around in her chair. 

“Hm?” 

“There’s a letter addressed to you.” Her mother handed her the envelope in question. Rinko accepted it, a confused expression morphing onto her face once she noticed the sender. “I don’t know what was so important it had to be handwritten… Answer your friend as soon as you can, okay?” 

“Okay. Thank you…” 

Giving a brisk nod in response, Rinko’s mother left the room. 

From then on, it was just her and the letter. 

Rinko’s confusion grew by the second; she began to open the envelope. The stamp was in the wrong place, but… 

Wait, it was first class too? 

Rinko didn’t even know that Himari could send letters. Out of everyone she knew, she seemed the most likely to text everything she could by a landslide. 

God, this was so surreal... 

An identical stamp to the first one fell from the folded paper with a note attached to it. She opened it up. 

_”for if you wanna post one back!! ( ˘ ³˘)♥”_

Rinko couldn’t help but smile. 

She reached for the main article, took the green ribbon off of it and unfolded it, smoothening out the creases. 

… Oh. 

The equally green paper fluttered in her hands; her heart experienced a similar phenomenon. A queerplatonic relationship request form. 

Rinko couldn’t say what she was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this. 

Taking a deep breath in to steel herself, she scanned over the sheet quickly for Himari’s additions. 

_”Currently we are THIS close physically. (Marked with X)”_

Weirdly enough, there was no X. Just a very much so capitalised “NOT ENOUGH” scribbled wherever there was enough room for it. 

_”I’d like us to be THIS close in the future! (Marked with O)”_

A somewhat circular ring was drawn around the cartoon figures cuddling. Faintly under it were several grainy loops just like it - erased for their lack of precision, presumably. 

Rinko laughed, visualising Himari’s frustration. 

_”I’d like us to do these things!”_

All of the former suggestions were glued over and replaced with custom ones - too many (and too specific) for Rinko to count. She only skim-read them for the time being, her embarrassment rocketing with each word; she definitely owed them more attention with how much effort was put into each. 

Finally, she focused on one of the last parts of the form. 

_”I’d like to call you my girlfriend! I’d like you to call me your girlfriend.”_

… Fuck, that did it. 

Rinko was, in all ways and languages, flustered. 

Her cheeks burned up so much that from a mile away, Hina Hikawa’s ice cream melted. 

The nearest pillow was snatched up in an instant. Rinko buried her face in it and made no plans to emerge until the century had finished. 

That wouldn’t cut it, though. Himari deserved at least some kind of response, if not one that was well-conducted rather than disastrously gay (and aromantic, but right now she was really feeling the gay and it stung). 

Hoping that she could remember how to hold a pen, Rinko reached for the nearest piece of paper and failed to get her thoughts in order. 

* * *

Recovering from shock and possible trauma in front of the Uehara household, a postman stood with a delivery missing from his hand and what could probably become a lawsuit. 

Only five seconds ago, he had held a letter addressed to Himari Uehara in his hand, ready to slip it through the letter plate. And in those five seconds, Himari Uehara herself had done all of the following: flung the door open, wrestled the envelope free, slammed the door closed, completely forgotten the meaning of “polite” and thundered back up the stairs and into the space she had come from. 

In the present moment, she cradled that very letter like her own child. 

If this turned out to be junk mail, she would be seriously mad about it. But luckily for her, it wasn’t. 

Himari was another five seconds away from tearing the envelope open until she thought better of it. Instead, the contents were gently coaxed from their packaging and sealed away for sentimental safekeeping. 

Time for the main event. 

Suddenly nervous, Himari kept the letter at an arm’s length away as she opened it. 

She had only one eye open when starting to read it, then both once she realised that this wasn’t inked-out rejection. Soon enough, Himari had her entire body crouched over the sheet. 

_”(I don’t know how to start this so bear with me (´△｀;) )”_

_”Our printer’s broken so I don’t have my own form printed out…”_

God damn it! Why didn’t she think to print one out for Rinko already? That’s the chivalrous thing to do! Stupid, stupid, stupid… 

_”... so I sent yours back to you. I ticked all the parts I agree with and crossed out any that I don’t agree with. I don’t really have any of my own suggestions…“_

… Huh. There weren’t any crosses aside from the kissing part. Well, that wasn’t a dealbreaker. 

_”I can’t think of anything else to say either… But I’m so happy that you asked. I’ve actually wanted to be in a QPR with you for a while >w<”_

At long last, it dawned on Himari. 

Rinko was commenting on her suggestions. 

The letter was sent back to begin with (and her name on the envelope had a heart next to it, now that Himari looked closer). 

She had even been meaning to ask her out for some time herself. 

With that all added up or even individually, that meant… 

_”I guess there’s not much else to say except…”_

Himari stumbled to her feet, not caring about how the bed wobbled threateningly under her feet. 

_”... I’d love to be your girlfriend!”_

“HELL FUCKING YEAH!” 

**Author's Note:**

> With Afterglow, Himari discussed labelling the relationship they had rather than using a request form. Helpfully, Moca insisted on them having a blood pact to seal their commitment. Himari cried and kicked Moca from the polycule.
> 
> I can confirm that I hell fucking yeah-d when my relationship started with my boyfriend sjfsjbfd this was all just an elaborate build-up to that joke I am So Sorry
> 
> Oh, and last thing! You can find the queerplatonic relationship form I described just by searching it up. There's only the one as far as I know.
> 
> Twitter: @himalovesrin


End file.
